This week's 'big' news on OSNews was about software patents. You know, those things that say you cannot stack four pixels on top of one another unless you pay money to the guy who invented four-pixel-stacks (or the guy who bought the guy who invented four-pixel-stacks). A company called IP Innovation, LLC, has sued Novell and Red Hat for infringement of the company's IP portfolio. Software patents are of course generally completely ridiculous, so I will not focus on that here. I want to focus on something else.

I did, and it made one thing clear. If there was any doubt left whether you're a Microsoft fan and biased in their favor, it's pretty much gone now. I have no other way of explaining why, in the light of everything Microsoft is famous for, you can bury your head in the sand and ask people to just look at the obvious facts, no further, so as to give them the benefit of the doubt.

How can we do that? Microsoft has the means, the history, the strong motive. Red Hat is an obvious target. If Microsoft are half smart we'll never find their prints on the murder weapon, but asking us to not suspect them is too bloody much, to the point of questioning our intelligence.

Occam's razor, hah. It's a reasoning tool. If you apply it to a select narrow set of facts, yeah, I guess it will even point at Microsoft being innocent.

And to go to the trouble to make an "article" of it, too. Using OSNews to promote your bias is pretty low, but trying to impress it upon others is a whole new level of low.

If there was any doubt left whether you're a Microsoft fan and biased in their favor, it's pretty much gone now.

I couldn't care less what people like you think of me. I have principles, and one of them is to look at the facts. And if the facts happen to be in favour of Microsoft (at this point in time, in this specific case), then so be it.

I have no other way of explaining why, in the light of everything Microsoft is famous for, you can bury your head in the sand and ask people to just look at the obvious facts, no further, so as to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I ask them that because that is what I, raised in an empirical society, have learnt to do. I refuse to give up hundreds of years of empirical thinking just because people like you have such a deep hatred of Microsoft. To me, it's just a compny, like Apple, like Red Hat, like Google. They are here to make money, and I'm here to annoy the crap out of them as a customer and yell at them for being assholes.

That's how it works. Microsoft has no special place for me.

And to go to the trouble to make an "article" of it, too. Using OSNews to promote your bias is pretty low, but trying to impress it upon others is a whole new level of low.

That's an editorial for you. If you don't like to hear views that oppose your own, then don't live in a free society.

I couldn't care less what people like you think of me. I have principles, and one of them is to look at the facts. And if the facts happen to be in favour of Microsoft (at this point in time, in this specific case), then so be it.

That's the definition of tabloid press you've stumbled upon there. Looking at facts as they are at a particular point in time and particular circumstances. At least tabloids have the excuse of trying to make headlines. I somehow doubt outward pro-Microsoft stances are very popular nowadays.

I ask them that because that is what I, raised in an empirical society, have learnt to do. I refuse to give up hundreds of years of empirical thinking just because people like you have such a deep hatred of Microsoft.

It's not hatred, it's wariness. Being impartial and taking Microsoft actions at face value is beyond me, I'll admit it. Because I'm not stupid. Their whole history is built on screwing others and very little else. I'd feel like an idiot if after all that I took their claims and hide-and-seek games and FUD as such. Empirism is nice in science, but when dealing with the real world I much prefer another school of thought: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

That's an editorial for you. If you don't like to hear views that oppose your own, then don't live in a free society.

I don't think that's how it goes. No, I think I'll stick around and speak my mind instead, thank you.